Quick Links

Welcome to Champaner in 1893

Champaner, the fictitious village that served as the primary setting for Lagaan, was created in Bhuj, Kutch (in the state of Gujarat). I am rather privileged to have an obvious connection to Kutch, for my ancestry lies there. How's that for yet another reason to love the film?! :)

Champaner is a lively village. Complete with some interesting homes and hard-working people...

...and a temple atop a hill...

But the people of Champaner are struggling to make ends meet. Their lands are barren, for it has not rained in the longest. For a community that survives on its agricultural output, this is devastating.

Maai struggles to feed her prized possessions (will she have to sell them?):

What makes matters worse is that the British Empire takes away a significant portion of whatever little they earn. This is done in the form of lagaan, i.e. tax:

The village was created from scratch, especially for the film, and torched upon the its completion. If it looks like a real village, it is because it was created by villagers, with most homes and articles of clothing being handmade.

This picture is from the book The Spirit of Lagaan -- a few months after shooting forthe film was completed, the building in which the cast lived for months during the shoot looked like this, following a massive earthquake in 2001. Several people died in the building too. In all, the earthquake claimed over 20,000 lives:

Disclaimer

This blog is merely a labor of love. It never has and never will contain advertisements of any sort. Copyrights to images, music, and video are owned by the respective content publishers. Copyrights to the text, unless otherwise noted, are owned by me.

I do not blog on behalf of anyone but myself. Please feel free to disagree with my opinions, and read at your own risk. I shall not be held liable for any outcomes, no matter how material or otherwise :) Enjoy!

"See, I wanted to be a director, I became one. Wanted to be an actor, I became one. Wanted to make good pictures, I have done that too. Have money, have everything. But I have nothing left."

Guru Dutt

"The world screams and shouts all kinds of advice and suggestions and actions to be undertaken, but in the end you fight your battles alone. It's just you and your opponent, your issue, your problem."

Amitabh Bachchan

"While we can use cinema as a medium to teach, create awareness, make people think, make people socially more aware, etc., the fact is that cinema's primary purpose is to entertain."